UK - Politika i društvo

Gargantua wrote:emigranti iz škotske narodne obnove, povereništvo u pertu:

Thousands march in #Perth in support of #Scottish independence#UK pic.twitter.com/BghGg4ZoN6

— Ruptly (@Ruptly) September 7, 2019

Rebel Tories expelled from the party are in talks with the Liberal Democrats about a non-aggression pact.

The former Lib Dem leader Tim Farron is helping to broker a deal between Rory Stewart, an expelled Conservative and neighbouring Cumbrian MP, and the new leader, Jo Swinson, insiders say.

Under the proposal, Stewart would stand as an independent MP at the next general election but agree to accept a soft Lib Dem whip in exchange for the party not fielding a candidate against him. It is understood that the Green Party would also stand aside in Stewart’s Penrith seat.

At least three other expelled Tory rebels, including the former universities minister Sam Gyimah, former business minister Margot James and former attorney-general Dominic Grieve, have had similar arrangements...

The Conservative Party plans to stand a candidate against Speaker John Bercow for his role in allowing MPs to take control of the Commons agenda.

Business secretary Andrea Leadsom accused the Speaker in the Mail on Sunday of "flagrant abuse" of process.

Breaching convention, the party plans to oppose Mr Bercow in his Buckingham constituency at the next election.
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It would not be the first challenge Mr Bercow has faced in his constituency since he became Speaker in 2009.

Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage, then standing as a candidate for UKIP, lost to Mr Bercow in Buckingham in the 2010 election.

Ms Leadsom repeatedly clashed with Mr Bercow in the two years when she was Leader of the Commons, a role which made her responsible for arranging government business in Parliament.

In May last year, the Speaker apologised after claims he called Ms Leadsom a "stupid woman".

In 2018 Mr Bercow let it be known he would stand down this summer - his tenth in office.

But earlier this month he told an audience at the Edinburgh festival fringe he would "fight with every breath in my body" to stop the government forcing through a no-deal Brexit by by-passing Parliament.

Last year, Mr Bercow was among MPs accused of bullying by staff in the House of Commons, although he denied the allegations.

When Gove was appointed secretary of state for education in 2010, he launched a full-scale campaign against the way history was being taught in schools, claimed that historians were ‘trashing our past’, and declared that a new national school history curriculum would get pupils studying ‘our island story’ in a connected narrative based on the rote-learning of names and dates, particularly those of kings and queens and battles and wars.
I pointed out in these pages that history shouldn’t at any level consist of cramming pupils with facts, let alone facts selected to make up a celebratory patriotic narrative stretching from Alfred and the cakes to the imperial triumphs of ‘Clive of India’ (Gove’s term): it was an academic discipline, like physics or economics, it had its methods just as they did, and central to what teachers sought to convey to their pupils was the ability to consider rival interpretations of the past and to reach their own views on them through a critical analysis of the sources on which they were based.[*]
In order to draw up a new curriculum, Gove had commissioned a series of what he thought were like-minded professional historians to advise him. Niall Ferguson was one; Simon Schama was hired to convene a committee to produce a draft. But Gove wasn’t satisfied. Ferguson wanted the curriculum to have a global dimension, which wasn’t what Gove wanted at all; the proposals put forward by Schama’s committee also deviated too much from the prescriptive and celebratory patriotic story he intended pupils to learn. So Gove ditched them all and wrote his own curriculum, more or less on the back of an envelope. The result was an outcry from history teachers across the country, backed by institutions such as the British Academy, the Royal Historical Society and the Historical Association (the national organisation of history teachers). Gove convened a meeting of Tory historians but the message he got was the same: the proposed curriculum was both unteachable and unlearnable.
Ferguson had stated in one of his early articles in defence of Gove that it was safe to say I wouldn’t be among those consulted about the new curriculum. But he was wrong. Gove sent his special political adviser to see me. A slim, balding, casually dressed, youngish man came into my Cambridge office and flopped into an armchair. ‘Well’, he said, ‘we’ve fucked up, haven’t we?’ It was Dominic Cummings.

So Gove ditched them all and wrote his own curriculum, more or less on the back of an envelope. The result was an outcry from history teachers across the country, backed by institutions such as the British Academy, the Royal Historical Society and the Historical Association (the national organisation of history teachers). Gove convened a meeting of Tory historians but the message he got was the same: the proposed curriculum was both unteachable and unlearnable.

"If the Government cannot get a Withdrawal Agreement through Parliament, they should go back to the EU and ask for an extension to the UK's leaving date"

Agree: 41%
Disagree: 37%

via @ComRes

"If the Government cannot get a Withdrawal Agreement through Parliament, they should leave the EU without a Withdrawal Agreement (i.e. without a deal)"

Agree: 42%
Disagree: 38%

via @ComRes

"It is better for the UK to leave with no deal than for Brexit to be extended beyond 31st October 2019":

Agree: 40%
Disagree: 42%

via @ComRes

"It is better for the Brexit deadline to be extended beyond 31st October 2019 than for the UK to leave without a deal"

Agree: 43%
Disagree: 39%

via @ComRes

France to insist on a ‘two-year’ extension to allow Brexit re-evaluation

MP from President Macron's party says UK cannot have another three month delay

France will demand that any extension to the Brexit deadline should be at least two years to allow the UK to “re-evaluate” its departure from the European Union, a senior En Marche MP has said.

It comes after the French foreign minister suggested on Sunday that France could veto any Brexit delay unless the UK can overcome its internal political turmoil.

France will demand that any extension to the Brexit deadline should be at least two years to allow the UK to “re-evaluate” its departure from the European Union, a senior En Marche MP has said.

It comes after the French foreign minister suggested on Sunday that France could veto any Brexit delay unless the UK can overcome its internal political turmoil.

Legislation due to become law on Monday will demand Boris Johnson ask for an extension until at least 31 January if he fails to secure a Brexit deal by 19 October.

Under the terms of the bill, however, Brussels can insist on a longer delay which must then be voted on by Parliament.

Macron has been clear

Bruno Bonnell, who is a member of Emanuel Macron’s party, said France would insist on a lengthier time limit to the UK’s exit in order to avoid repeated crises every three months.

“I think that our president has been really clear. Even the last time the UK requested it, it is really the dead-end limit – after the 31 October the game is over,” Mr Bonnell told BBC Radio 4’s World At One.

“Now if – and this door was open before – if we’re talking about a long delay like maybe a couple of years, to re-evaluate the whole Brexit situation in light of the truth… because the bottom line is what people are realising is that they have been lied to.”

He continued: “What should have been harmless for the UK and simple to set up and we see after two years of heavy negotiation we still have no agreement, so there comes a time when you need to put a stick in the ground.”

Bad cop

France has taken it upon itself to be the “bad cop” of the EU when it comes to the UK asking for a Brexit extension.

It had been suggested that senior former Cabinet members, who were last week expelled from the parliamentary Tory party, had received private assurances that an extension to Article 50 would be granted.

But Jean-Yves Le Drian, a senior member of Emanuel Macron’s cabinet, ruled out any further delays due to the ongoing political upheaval in the UK.

“In the current circumstances, it’s no. We are not going to go through this every three months,” Mr Le Drian said.

Let the UK take responsibility

The threat dramatically increases the chances of the UK leaving the EU without a deal on 31 October as all 27 EU countries must sign up to any extension.

“The [British] say that they want to put forward other solutions, alternative arrangements so that they can leave,” Mr Le Drian said.

“But we have not seen them and so it is ‘no’ – let the British authorities tell us the way forward.”

And he added: “Let them take responsibility for their situation, they have to tell us what they want.”

Source from 10 Downing Street: “under no circumstances will no10 staff comply with Grieve's demands regardless of any votes in Parliament”. We are facing another constitutional crisis, because Grieve has couched his demand as “humble address” to Queen https://t.co/N6XaiIm9j4

— Robert Peston (@Peston) September 9, 2019

This latest development revolves around a combination of messages thought to exist outside of official government communication channels in which senior advisers Hugh Bennett, Simon Burton, Dominic Cummings, Nikki da Costa, Tom Irven, Sir Roy Stone, Christopher James, Lee Cain and Beatrice Timpson are thought to have discussed the suspension of parliament - as well as the planning for a "no-deal" Brexit, which had been named "Operation Yellowhammer".

The messages are thought to provide evidence that the decision to suspend Parliament was a strategic move designed to stifle debate in the House of Commons ahead of the October 31 Brexit deadline, and not, as publicly stated when asking Queen Elizabeth II to endorse the decision, to introduce a new domestic legislative agenda.
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Grieve's motion asked for all correspondence and communications, whether formal or informal, including WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, Facebook messenger, private email accounts, text messages, iMessage and official and personal mobile phones connected to the present government since July 23 relating to parliament's suspension, to be handed over.